A Brazilian school made of wood is announced as world’s best building

The building-buffs at Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) are done furrowing their collective brow: the winner of the 2018 RIBA international prize for the best building in the world has been announced, and the gong has gone to a wooden school located in northern Brazil.

Tucked away on the fringes of a rainforest, Children Village is a sustainable and cost-efficient boarding school with space to take in around 540 students from around the South American country.

The result of a collaboration between architects Aleph Zero and designer Marcelo Rosenbaum, it has been praised by RIBA’s president Ben Derbyshire for being an “exceptional environment designed to improve the lives and wellbeing of the school’s children,” that also “illustrates the immeasurable value of good educational design."

Children’s Village took the top spot ahead of Budapest’s Central European University, Milan’s incredibly-intriguing Il Bosco Verticale development, and the Toho Gakuen School of Music over in Japan.

The prize is awarded on a bi-annual basis to “a building that exemplifies design excellence and architectural ambition, while also delivering meaningful social impact.”

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In today’s world of contemporary art where anything can be deemed art as long as enough people say so, the ever-blurring boundaries of the subject are becoming fuzzier by the minute. If one end of the spectrum sees art reaching its metaphysical heights, at the other there are organisations like Forensic Architecture, which works to uncover the truth of real events in minute detail. Although the London-based research agency seems far removed from today’s general perception of contemporary art — a world filled with eccentricity, concerns of gallery representation and commercial sales — Forensic Architecture is nonetheless nominated for this year’s prestigious Turner Prize. Having just won the Beazley Design of the Year award, the agency is treading new territory, navigating between the spheres of science, architecture and now, art, to provide justice for some of the world’s most underrepresented communities.

Last month we heard about an architecture studio working with Hackney Council to rework the signage and colour scheme within the London borough’s housing estates. A particularly personal subject matter to It’s Nice That, as our studio — along with many other notable creative agencies — is situated within Hackney. With the rapid gentrification of London’s
East End, particularly over the past decade, this project raises a multitude of social issues surrounding Hackney’s changing landscape. The council and Studio Weave confront these issues with the projects entitled Colour in Hackney and Signage in Hackney, which explore the best ways to support the long-standing communities of Hackney estates while simultaneously encouraging the economic growth that is benefiting the borough in so many other ways.

The concept of disobedience and the country of Greece have been linked for centuries; from the cautionary tale of Icarus who, despite his father’s warnings, flew too close to the sun, to Pandora’s box, to Prometheus who disobeyed the Gods to obey his moral obligation to humanity – the country’s mythology is loaded with rebellion. Whilst this may be at the roots of Nassia Inglessis (of Studio INI)’s pavilion at this year’s London Design Biennale, it isn’t the destructive nature of the word that inspires her, but rather the way that it can be harnessed for debate, for creativity, and for progress.

In 2019, the iconic 1960s roundabout in Old Street, London, will be entirely removed and a two-way traffic system introduced, creating a new public space. As part of the regeneration, Islington Council in partnership with the Mayor of London, Transport for London and Hackney Council asked designers to consider how the street could look after the roundabout is removed. Four winning concepts have now been chosen from a long-list of 39 designers which included Zaha Hadid Architects and Es Devlin.

More than a manufacturer of city-friendly cars, smart sees itself as a concept born to shake up the status quo. The outlet for the brand’s message smart magazine, which describes itself as “a place for stories about visionaries and creative urbaneers, about projects and initiatives that help to improve life in the city.”

It’s a world which reaches far, far beyond cars. smart magazine has positioned itself as an expert on experimental urban architecture with a suite of articles on vertical gardening, a concept which frees up space in busy cities and has hugely positive environmental affects at the same time. Win/win! We’ve rounded up three articles from smart magazine, which will tell you everything you need to know about vertical gardening and why it has the power to keep our cities clean.

By 2050, the proportion of people living in cities will have risen to 70% – an intimidating concept that SPACE10, IKEA’s research laboratory, believes the creative industry needs to address. So during London Design Festival it will take over Shoreditch’s Protein Studios with a week-long series of events under the theme Exploring Spaces of Tomorrow. Under that, a top-notch roster of creative collaborators have been invited to exhibit, demonstrate and speak about how the industry can help build a more sustainable, meaningful and affordable living environment for an increasingly urbanised society.

It’s been a long year, hasn’t it? And your eyes are tired, aren’t they? We can help. Why not soothe those sore lids by taking a visual stroll down recent-memory lane with 25 of our most read photography pieces of 2018? From KangHee Kim’s satisfyingly shimmering images of celestial streetlamps to Sam Gregg’s gloriously vivid snapshots of life in sun-soaked Naples, all of life this year gone is here.
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Film, all things considered, is a pretty good medium. Over the past 12 months we’ve covered all sorts, from documentaries detailing the daily lives of London’s North Korean immigrant community to a chef-heavy music video by the much-loved rapper Loyle Carner. We like film. And you evidently do, too, if this Top 25 film-related It’s Nice That pieces from 2018 is anything to go by.
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We count ourselves incredibly lucky here at It’s Nice That, largely because we come into contact with such superb examples of illustration on a daily basis. As you can see from the features below, which were the 25 most read on the site over the past 12 months, the bulk of what comes our way is good. Really good. Lap up the creme de la creme below. You deserve it. After all, you got these pieces where they are today.

You can’t have failed to notice how much attention It’s Nice That focuses on graphic design. This year we have, as ever, cast a gaze over everything from big name commercial work to the fantastic self-initiated projects that feel as fresh now as they did the first day they arrived perfectly formed in our inbox. Practitioners and enthusiasts alike, consider this a crash course in the year that was in graphic design.
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Animation’s in our blood at It’s Nice That. Ever since we first crawled into virtual being all those years ago, we’ve never stopped looking for the brightest and best of the animated world. If you’re looking for a fun way to soak up some creative juices over the Christmas period, why not peruse the top 25 animation articles we’ve published this year? You won’t regret it.
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From Burberry getting a new logo courtesy of Peter Saville to Marina Abramović promising to electrify herself with one million volts in the name of art, via Taylor Swift butting heads with Spike Jonze over allegations of copy-catting, and the release of a new typeface that claims to be able to boost your memory, a lot has happened in the creative world since we said hello to January back in, well, January.

As we start thinking about boarding packed trains to various parts of the country, letting It’s Nice That have a bit of time to itself, we’d like to take this opportunity to share with you, dear readers, the 100 most read articles we published in 2018. We’ve got news, work posts, and features – all of which explore the breadth of contemporary creativity. Thanks for reading!
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We’re not sure about you, but there’s something about this time of year that makes everyone here at It’s Nice That want to curl up on the sofa with a decent long read. Handy, then, isn’t it, that we’ve curated this bumper batch of the best features we’ve published on the site in 2018? They’re practically crying out to be consumed with a fistful of Pringles and an ill-advised second glass of snowball.
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As the year draws to a close and we reflect on the creative comings and goings 2018 has brought, York-based illustrator Adam Higton and French illustration duo Maxime Prou and Adéle Favreau, otherwise known as Atelier Bingo, have been working away interpreting the 12 months of the year into an A4 poster. Collaborating over Dropbox Paper, the group’s final illustrative interpretation will be available for free at our monthly event, Nicer Tuesdays.

“Illustrating data is hard,” says Mona Chalabi. Given that Mona is a data journalist who specialises in illustration, she’d know. Over the past few years, London-born, New York-based Mona has produced work for the likes of the International Organization for Migration, the Bank of England, and superstar statistician Nate Silver’s number-heavy editorial platform FiveThirtyEight.

Quickly coming out just as we reach the end of the creative year is Kim Gehrig’s newest advert, Viva La Vulva for Libresse. And, in true Kim style, it’s arguably one of the most joyful, inclusive and confidence-boosting pieces of advertising of 2018.

Emulsion is a new publication documenting cutting-edge arts and culture. Designed by the London-based design studio Our Place, the magazine is founded on pluralistic objectives with the hopes of pushing boundaries through its imaginative design and content. Its first issue is packed with artist interviews, photography, fashion, music, original artworks and opinion pieces from the likes of some of It’s Nice That’s favourite creatives including Jonathan Castro and Ida Ekblad.

Hwashin Choi’s illustrations reject the flat and digital styles of working that are so popular today. Instead, she repurposes traditional modes of realist drawing for a contemporary audience, paying close attention to how light falls on objects and the characterisation of objects and facial expression.

If ever you wanted to examine the human relationship to, and reliance on, the very resources which make up our world and how this fundamentally shapes everything we are, you need look no further than the Caspian Sea. Located at the intersection of Asia and Europe, it is the world’s largest inland body of water and one of the oldest and most important oil and natural gas-producing regions on Earth.

Over the past 12 months, Google has been delving deep into the fascinating world of machine learning with articles on Google Design, plus new open-source projects and products. With AI becoming an increasingly prevalent part of the creative world, this should come as no surprise. Also unsurprisingly, the work it’s carried out in the field is innovative, exciting, and stimulating.

2018’s Review of the Year is supported by Google Design. Google Design, for the uninitiated, is an initiative led by an uber-talented selection of developers, designers, and writers at Google. They’re all about working across teams to create top-notch content and to produce events that champion creativity and showcase the brilliant design work Google does day in and day out. Having celebrated a Milan Design Week debut, amongst other achievements, it feels like Google Design has pushed on from an already exciting position.

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Emily Oberman can hardly believe her luck. The designer, a partner in Pentagram’s New York office since 2012, is a self-professed Harry Potter “super fan” and for the past three years has been working to bring some of the newest projects in the wizarding universe to life. Put simply, it’s been a dream project to work on something that, as she puts it, “entertains the world”.

We all have an idea of what fashion in Tokyo entails. Harajuku girls, manga-inspired makeup, doll-like dresses embellished with lace, Muji minimalism and bold, Comme Des Garçons silhouettes. Our perceptions of Japanese fashion from the West understand boldness and visual excess, yet there are innumerable nuances within Tokyo’s fashion scene as seen through labels such as Pugment.

As we near the end of our look back at 2018, we’ve enlisted journalist, broadcaster and editor Kieran Yates to look back over the key moments which shaped the creative (and wider) world over the past 12 months. From logo-heavy football shirts to Love Island, these are some of the stories that got us talking.

Shinwoo Park has been running the graphic design studio Paperpress since 2016 in Seoul. Working across a variety of disciplines wherever graphics are concerned, from the tongue of a shoe trainer to pin badges and poster design, Paperpress locates the point where “graphic design and description overlap” to create expressive designs that suit each client.

“I think with photography you can create a whole fantasy around yourself, so when I design a set and develop a character for a picture, I try to create an entirely new reality for me and the people I’m portraying, hopefully, a reality that is better than the actual one,” explains México City-based photographer Andrés Mañon. With several commissions for the likes of i-D Mexico under his belt, Andrés’ work does exactly as he intends, building elaborate worlds full of over-saturated, yet altogether compelling characters.

Our final speaker at Nicer Tuesdays November was Leipzig-based illustrator, Anna Haifisch. After seeing Anna speak at Eike König’s After School Club in Offenbach during July this year, we quickly realised the illustrator was a must to speak at Nicer Tuesdays before the year was up, also doubling up as the first comic reading we’ve had at our monthly event.

Joining us at Nicer Tuesdays November was Yuri Suzuki, shortly after the designer’s slightly surprising announcement that he was the newest Pentagram partner. Even Yuri notes how the decision for him to join the design partnership was a surprise to himself, recalling how when the initial conversation began his first question was “Why!?”

A little while ago, art director Anna Sullivan spotted an old vintage postcard featuring stilt walking shepherds. Stilt walking shepherds! Curious, as anyone in their right mind would be, Anna started digging into why these shepherds were atop stilts — which we now only associate with childhood games and circus performances — to herd sheep.

It’s Nice That favourites Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared created by the fun-filled directors Becky and Joe, will head to Sundance Film Festival next year. The Blinkink creative duo will premier their Youtube-hit series at the largest independent film festival in the US this January 2019.

Boiler Room is yet again shedding light on important social issues in a part of the world that is little known to us. The second film for its Contemporary Scenes series is To Live & Die in Manila and sees music orientated artists from the Filipino capital emotively express their frustrations under the bloodbaths incurred by the president of just over two years, Rodrigo Duterte.

New York based producer and DJ Anthony Naples has been an It’s Nice That favourite ever since we first heard the effervescent Mad Disrespect on some sweaty dancefloor somewhere back in 2012. We were hooked from that half-remembered moment on.

Yung Hua Chen’s photography is seductive and cinematic. The Taipei-based photographer captures alluring portraits for fashion designers and also, purely for the love of the medium. Recently, she’s been shooting her lover Chihtian Shih. She tells It’s Nice That, “he inspires me in many kinds of ways. He’s an actor and plays many different roles that give him different life experiences.” Chihtian’s brooding good looks are seen in all types of situations; dappled in a dusky sunlight, walking the streets of Taipei, peacefully sleeping still in his clothes.

For the past ten years, graphic and spacial design studio Julia has been producing work for clients from the cultural and commercial sector, including everything from typefaces to books, magazines, exhibitions, posters, websites and identities. Having been formed in late 2008 by Valerio Di Lucente, Erwan Lhuissier and Hugo Timm, Valerio and Erwan (who have been running the studio since May of this year) are celebrating a decade of Julia. We caught up with the pair to find out a bit more about how their work has taken shape over this time.

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